Ferraro, a Democrat from New York City, was a member of Congress when she made history as the first woman to run for vice president in 1984. She was Walter Mondale’s running mate in his unsuccessful bid against Ronald Reagan’s re-election.

She recently announced that she is being treated for multiple myeloma, a type of cancer formed by malignant plasma cells. These malignant cells can cause tumors to grow in various sites, particularly in the bone marrow.

Ferraro said she has benefited from an old drug now used for a new purpose — treating multiple myeloma. Oncologists have recently added to their arsenal the drug thalidomide, which was banned for decades after it was found to cause severe birth defects, miscarriages, and stillbirths in the late 1950s. In 1998, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the use of thalidomide to treat leprosy.

A 1999 article in the New England Journal of Medicine reported that the drug helped one-third of patients with multiple myeloma for periods from six months to one year, says Herman Kattlove, MD, a medical oncologist and medical editor for the American Cancer Society (ACS).

Once the FDA has approved a drug for any use, doctors may prescribe it for other diseases as they see fit, and Kattlove says that oncologists around the country are now prescribing it for some patients with multiple myeloma, although usually not as the first line of treatment.

"[Thalidomide] is still a palliative therapy when someone has relapsed after standard chemotherapy," Kattlove says. "The side effects are substantial. It’s a tranquilizer. It makes people very sleepy."

However, he continues, its side effects may be preferable to additional chemotherapy for some patients. Researchers are exploring the possibility of using it for other cancers as well, and for HIV patients.

Because of the certainty that thalidomide causes birth defects, the FDA makes strong recommendations about using two birth control methods at the same time for all patients — male and female — who take thalidomide. But such warnings are not even an issue for most patients with multiple myeloma, according to Kattlove. Patients with this disease are usually in their 60s or older, and many forms of chemotherapy would tend to make them sterile, regardless.

Kattlove says that multiple myeloma is a disease in which patients can be diagnosed at a variety of stages. Sometimes the first sign is mild anemia, and the disease grows slowly, he says. But sometimes the disease comes on more quickly, says Kattlove. He tells of a patient whose first symptoms included breaking her arm while brushing her hair.

No one is certain how thalidomide helps the patients who have had some success with it, Kattlove says. It is believed the drug prevents angiogenesis — the formation of new blood cells that feed a tumor — but other theories have been put forth, including that it attacks malignant cells directly.

The standard first-line treatment for multiple myeloma consists of two drugs used together, melphalan and prednisone, according to the ACS’ on-line Cancer Resource Center. These drugs are usually taken by mouth but can also be given intravenously. Some patients may also benefit from bone marrow transplants. Visit the ACS website to learn more about standard treatments.

Research continues on biological treatments that may attack the malignant cells more specifically, and on treatments that block the bone damage or stop the flow of blood to the tumors. For more about research on new treatments, click here.

The ACS estimates that about 14,400 new cases of multiple myeloma will be diagnosed in 2001. About 11,200 patients with the disease are expected to die this year.